Sunday, October 20, 2013

Movie review: Star Trek Into Dullness

I finally got around to watching Star Trek Into Darkness, and I have to say it's probably the worst Star Trek movie I've seen. Even worse than The Final Frontier or The Search for Spock or even Nemesis.

It's just simply a bad movie. There's far too much retreading plot elements from the first movie, and it's so unbelievable that they could remake Wrath of Khan to begin with ... of course, that's about all Hollywood can do nowadays is remake movies.

Did there need to be another major skydive in this movie, too? And while I love Leonard Nimoy, the first thing Alternate Spock does is check with his Real Universe older self and have him break his code against revealing the future (or at least the future as it should've been). Wow, Kirk gets demoted, again? Surprise, surprise. Oh, and of course Kirk had to be shown in bed with alien wenches again, right? And those fucking lens flares! I wonder if McCoy's main job on the ship is optometrist.

There were too many things in this movie that just made no sense. If people can beam over intergalactic distances, why bother with starships? Even Scotty's pissed off about them using his Transwarp equation for that.

Oh, and Khan's blood doesn't just heal people; it can raise the dead. Well, I guess there's no need to worry about the Klingons now. We can just resurrect anyone they kill. The third movie's gonna be might dull. Apparently Carol Marcus will be in her skivvies for most of that film to keep peoples' attention.

Let's poke around and find the good things in Into Dullness: Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, who I swear is channeling the late DeForest Kelley he's so spot on. Simon Pegg was good as Scotty as well. Peter Weller's performance was excellent but completely wasted. The special effects were okay; typically overblown as most "blockbuster"/"tent-pole" movies are nowadays. There comes a point when there's almost TOO much going on in a scene for anyone to comprehend what they should be following for the sake of the story.

Then there's Khan, with the now-officially over-exposed Benedict Cumberbatch. He's great in Sherlock. Hell, he's now more Sherlock than Rathbone and Brett in some quarters (not mine). But he's no Ricardo Montalban when it comes to Khan. He's just too smarmy and there's no warmth in his performance. Montalban's Khan was a complete bastard, but you felt other emotions in him as well. Cumberbatch's Khan is just too superhuman living weapon and nothing else. The exact opposite of Chris Pine's Kirk.

The only real way this movie could've saved itself would've been for Kirk to have remained dead. That would've been a good impetus for any future movies in the series - find a Captain who's not a complete jerk. Chris Pine's adolescent performance makes you wish Bill Shatner would stop by and slap some sense into him. He may have been a ham at times, but at least Shatner could play a goddamn captain. All Pine is portraying is a drunk, sex-crazed, young punk.

If I had to rate this movie with some fanciful ratings system, it would get maybe One Phaser Bank out of however many the Enterprise may have now. A complete letdown on so many levels, it isn't even funny.

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About Me

Rich Meyer is a freelance writer, editor and reviewer of random stuff. He has written over 30 ebook quiz books, available for the Kindle through Amazon.com (and a few still on Smashwords, pointless endeavor though that may be).
He is a volunteer and member of the Old Time Radio Researchers Group, the National Lum and Abner Society and was a card-carrying member in good standing of the last incarnation of the Mister Ed Fan Club.
Rich's biggest influences have been Frank Zappa, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Charles Dickens and the Firesign Theatre. He is also an avid comic book aficionado, a fan of Mego action figures since he was a li'l spud, and a collector of classic TV and movie serials on DVD.
Rich also plays annually in the World's Biggest Trivia Contest, broadcast from his hometown of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, on a team known as Collective Foole.
Rich lives in Pennsylvania with his lovely wife Mona and their menagerie of furry children.